Color images such as digital photographs are currently editable in a variety of ways. For example, it is often desirable to change the color of an object in a digital photograph; however, it can be difficult to achieve realistic results, especially when the new color has a substantially different luminance or lightness than that of the original color. Also difficult is appropriately separating the base color from the shading characteristics or retaining the shading characteristics of the original. Existing solutions based on general color editing tools require considerable experience, skill and experimentation. Many coloring algorithms have filters that can be useful for these tasks, such as those known as Colorize, Hue/Saturation/Lightness and Hue Map. However, these have not been well suited to the re-coloring of an object in an image because they rely on the skill, experience and tenacity of the user. The best choice in any particular situation may depend upon the re-coloring task at hand. Even when the best filter is chosen, it can be difficult to adjust the controls to give the desired appearance. Moreover, it is often the case that desired results cannot be obtained.
A practical example of this problem may be that of an online clothing merchandiser offering a particular style of a particular garment, but in several base fabric colors. It could prove beneficial to such an enterprise to have the ability to easily create digital images which could alternatively show any of a range of available colors, but without the need to take multiple photographs. A practical benefit would be obtained if they were able to easily, realistically and accurately change the color, after-the-fact, from a single photograph of a model.